Kato Yoshikazu is a Japanese writer who is very familiar to Chinese audiences. He once studied at Peking University and has written several books on China-Japan relations and about his life in Beijing. Japanese writer Kato Yoshikazu faked his resume WRITER and news commentator Kato Yoshikazu admitted on his Web site and microblog that he lied on his resume in regards to his studying experiences after the 28-year-old was accused by Japanese magazine Shukan Bunshun of faking his resume. A reporter from the magazine interviewed Yoshikazu’s high school teachers, and quoted one as stating that “only two students were accepted into the University of Tokyo the year Yoshikazu graduated, and he wasn’t one of them.” Yoshikazu earlier boasted he was admitted to the University of Tokyo. Yoshikazu did not explain other allegations, which said that he had not placed fourth in a national judo competition, nor was he a senior researcher at Keio University in Japan and a researcher at Peking University (PKU). Dong Jie, a former student at PKU, said the university had warned Yoshikazu not to use the title of researcher. Yoshikazu on Wednesday published an apology on his Chinese microblog expressing his regret over the false personal data. PKU, where Yoshikazu received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations in 2008 and 2010 respectively, explained that Yoshikazu had proven himself qualified to attend PKU through the school’s admission examinations in 2003 and whether or not he had studied at any other university wouldn’t affect his studies at the school and PKU won’t revoke his degrees. Easily the most visible and well-known Japanese in China, Yoshikazu was described as a potential bridge of understanding between China and Japan. During his nine-year stay in China, Yoshikazu wrote columns for both Chinese and English publications and participated in many TV programs, talking about Sino-Japanese relations. He has spent the better part of his 20s in China, studying, observing and writing about what he sees. He published more than 1,000 articles and some 20 books in three languages on China before going to the United States in August. The books cover multiple aspects of Chinese society and offer a unique perspective for both Chinese and foreigners. He has also appeared frequently in the media, sharing his views, or coordinating forums and seminars. He has appeared on countless talk-shows and also written articles for several Chinese newspapers and publications and is a regular columnist for the Chinese edition of the Financial Times. He has more than 1.5 million followers on his Sina Weibo microblog, where he writes about many issues ranging from the need to have timely and credible information from the Japanese Government during disasters, to social and political trends in China. Most of his works and speeches are in Chinese, for he’s a fluent Mandarin speaker and writer. He once said his fate was already bound with China, and he regarded China as his second home. Speaking to China Daily in August, he said he believed that leaving China may let him understand, observe and interpret China even better, from a distance. “I was there when China was being watched intensively and when the world was curious to know more about it,” he says. “I was there sending my voice out in Chinese and now, I will try my best to establish myself as a world-level expert on China. “As a China watcher, I know I will rise if the future of China rises, and I will slide if the country is to slide down.” Yoshikazu said his American plans were forged three years ago, and denied it was in response to the furor he raised when he made remarks about the Nanjing Massacre during a public speech in May. After he showed ambiguity on the historical facts of the tragedy, Yoshikazu was swarmed by angry Chinese netizens. A scheduled speech at a university was canceled. “I take that event as a lesson,” he said at a cafe near his alma mater, Peking University, in August, on the eve of his departure. “I learned not to be too self-assured, and not to touch the bottom line,” he said. He said he still thought he emerged the winner, because the experience of being chastised has added to his work and made him both subject and object of his research on how the Chinese think and react. Yoshikazu grew from a foreign student to an expert on China with authority with “The Third Eye,” one of his most influential columns, which appears on the Financial Times Chinese Web site and lasted seven years. The column’s editor Wang Fang says Yoshikazu is among their most productive columnists. “He contributes a mirror-like reflection for Chinese readers from the point of a foreigner who’s deeply rooted in China,” Wang says. Yoshikazu doesn’t see his accumulating influence in China as a success, and he would rather call it “maturity.” “I’ve made working hard a fixed status of my life. I’ll never be satisfied with myself, I could do even better,” he says. Yoshikazu was born the eldest son in a financially disadvantaged family in Izu, Shizuoka Prefecture. After he had finished with the suffering and distress of paying back debts and raising his younger siblings, he arrived in Beijing in 2003 with no acquaintance in China and speaking no Chinese. “I knew nothing about the country except its huge population, Chairman Mao and the phrase nihao (hello),” he says, adding that he has long hoped to become a United Nations officer. Despite his English fluency, learned as a part-time translator in high school to help out his family, he chose China because “I couldn’t afford countries like the United States, and I was here because people speak one of the six U.N. official languages.” He got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees i bn international relations from Peking University. Soon, he was active in social work and spoke on TV representing Japanese students in China. “I deeply remember two images of Kato. He was jogging on campus in extremely colorful outfits, and going to class in a formal suit among a class dressed in casual clothes,” says Yang Hui, a Guangdong-based media worker who was also Yoshikazu’s classmate in Peking University. “The girls in class were mad about Kato, who was doing real work, and getting involved in high-level social activities,” Yang says. “And he impressed us with his Chinese fluency.” Yoshikazu said he was a faithful reader of the People’s Daily, and also watched the national news bulletins on CCTV every day. They helped him learn the language and were also barometers of the country’s political climate. “I benefited a lot from them in the range of my writing, and I also got to know the rules of the game.” On China-Japanese relations, Yoshikazu believes in a more balanced and nuanced understanding. “It isn’t helpful to describe China as communist and Japan as militarist. Or China as a blindly expanding big power, and Japan as a small country that is suffering from decline. We should not use labels like these to judge a country and its people.” “Some Japanese either think of China as still being in the ancient era of Emperor Qinshihuang, or as a hugely cosmopolitan place with tall skyscrapers like in Shanghai, while Chinese knowledge of Japan remains stuck in the World War II era.” Yoshikazu is also the author of this book “China, Have I Misunderstood You.” He has been described as the unofficial Japanese ambassador to China. He is certainly one person not to be overlooked in the current and future discussions of Sino-Japanese relations.(SD-Agencies) | 